01Drawers and Doors
Freezer Drawer Will Not Close Flush
Check these before you call anyone
- 01
Slide the drawer right out to its stop and push it home again, slowly. A runner carrying ice gives itself away in the last inch of travel, and a drawer fouling a door shows up the same way.
- 02
Look along the gasket for a split, a tear or a corner gone hard. A damaged seal is renewed rather than coaxed, and one that has swollen holds the drawer off all by itself.
- 03
Take out whatever stands at the very back of the drawer. A box a centimetre too tall stops the last stretch of travel, and no amount of pushing will settle it.
If none of that is it, stop there — the next step needs a meter. Sub-Zero Repair Experts Los Angeles, (310) 496-3358.
The loop this fault runs in
A drawer that stops short leaves a slot for kitchen air. That air carries moisture, the moisture settles on the coldest metal it meets, and here that means the runner and the lip the gasket lands on. What settles freezes, and frozen condensation is precisely what stops the drawer travelling its last few millimetres.
So the gap makes ice and the ice widens the gap. Left through a warm month the drawer sits visibly out of line with the fronts beside it, and the compartment runs longer each day to cover what is leaking in.
Where to look first
Ice on the runners, a gasket gone hard or torn, and a load standing too tall behind the face account for nearly all of it. Rule out the load, then the seal, then the runners: the cheapest cause is the commonest. A drawer that has never sat flush since the kitchen was built is a fitting question rather than a fault.
If it is not that
Where the gasket has torn or gone hard, the seal and the alignment reset that goes with it are priced onthe drawer seal page.
The same gap on a hinged door announces itself as a white line round the opening, covered byfrost around the freezer door edge.
Runners, hinges and seals all belong to the same visit, described onour freezer repair page.
Follow-ups
Is a small gap at the top of the drawer worth fixing?
Yes, because it will not stay small. Room air entering at the gap condenses, the condensation freezes on the runner or the sealing face, and the ice pushes the drawer out a fraction further. Every cycle widens it, so a millimetre in March is a finger's width by August.
Can a drawer be brought back into line, or does something get replaced?
Often it can, once the ice is gone and the gasket is sound, since runners and drawer fronts carry adjustment. Whether the setting holds depends on what pushed it out of true, which is why the seal and the runner get looked at together. Sub-Zero Repair Experts Los Angeles, (310) 496-3358.
Sub-Zero Repair Experts Los Angeles works on Sub-Zero freezers across the east side and the south valley. (310) 496-3358 — answered 24/7, on-site 8:00 am – 8:00 pm, seven days, $89 for the visit and the diagnosis.